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Wednesday, 25 April 2012

A day at the hospital

I didn’t sleep much last night. Though I was exhausted. And drained. I
took pain meds before bed, but they wore off, and I was wakened by pain just
after 4am. And then my brain
started racing about all the things I had experienced the day before. And I was up until after 7. I did get another couple of hours of
sleep. DP (bless him) took pity on
me and my sleepless night and got up with the kids and started breakfast.

Tuesday, the big day, started very early. We were up at 530, so we could leave by
6. It was like we were going on
vacation to Turcs and Caicos again.
Except totally not as much fun.
But the same sneaking around the house quietly in the dark thing.

We were hoping than the 3 hours that we left for getting
there would allow us to take our car all the way in. Alas, the traffic was working against us, so we took the
subway in. It was crowded. With people. Standing really close to me. Shudder.

We find the hospital, and find Dr. W’s office, where we are
greeted by a soft spoken man who works for the doctor. He gets my information and my MRI disk
and my Xray disk. And hands me
some paperwork to fill out before meeting with Dr. W.

So we sit in a row of chairs. With signs for “Orthopedic Oncology” all around. Pictures of tumors on the wall. Success Rates posted.

I find this terribly funny. I mean, I know why we are here. I know what Dr. W does. But what if you didn’t? That would be quite the shock.

We are taken into a room by a medical student who takes my
history. She can’t find the lump
on my leg, but I could certainly feel her touching it.

We then wait some more. I get worried, as we were supposed to have my appointment
with Dr. W at 9, then another appointment at 1030. It is 1025, and
I still haven’t met the doctor.
I go to talk to the soft-spoken man, who tells me he has already changed
my appointment and I will go later on.
Perfect. That 1030
appointment was supposed to be a pre-op appointment. For an operation that the doctor hasn’t told me about
yet. A little awkward.

Dr. W comes in.
He seems kind and friendly, and gets right to it. He starts with “So – what do you know?”
I tell him that we are here to find out if I have a bone infection, or if I
have cancer. He says okay, and
goes on with the appointment. He
can feel the sore spot right away, guessing it from the MRI he says, but he can
feel the swelling as well.

He can’t tell me for sure if I have cancer. He tells me I probably have
cancer. And that the only way he
can know for sure is to do a biopsy.
They will culture some, in case it is an infection, but some will go to
pathology to determine the type of cancer. His vibe is that he would be
surprised if it was an infection.
So there goes the hope that he tells me he was the wrong doctor for me.

It is likely osteosarcoma, lymphoma of the bone or Ewings
sarcoma.

Regardless of the type, I’m looking at chemo and surgery.

But he says the following:

“You will be cured of this”.

I ask him if he will connect me with an oncologist. He smiles and says that he is an
oncologist. Cancer in the bones is
all he does.

That hits me pretty hard. All he does is bone cancer. And he says I probably have cancer.

Translation: It
is very likely that I have cancer.
Way more likely than not.
Way more. It is as good as
a given.

However, he feels very strongly that it will be very
treatable. It is still contained
in the bone, there was only a small amount of bone growth, not a big lumpy
tumour outside of the bone.

The rest of the day filled up quickly. Much of the testing was to help with
staging. They need to know if the
cancer has spread. I had Xrays of
my lungs (bone cancer likes to spread to the lungs), and of my shoulder and
elbow (I’ve been having pain there, likely unrelated to the cancer, but better
to have it checked out). They also
wanted new ones of my leg. I will
also be having another MRI and a CT scan.

As an extra treat – I had a bone scan. This is a super cool thing. You get radioactive isotopes injected
into your vein. Then you wait 2
hours. (We went for lunch) The
isotopes collect in your bones.
And they REALLY collect in “hot spots” in your bones. These spots can indicate areas of
extraordinary cell growth. Cancer.

I got to see part of my scan – and my right leg was BRIGHT
WHITE. Glowing. From just below my knee to about half
way down my shin. Bright white.

The only other hot spots that I could see were my bladder
and kidneys. The isotopes like
urine too! There is nothing wrong
my bladder and kidneys. I was just
working out my coffee and waters from lunch.

Now – I’m not a doctor (nor do I play one on TV), but the
fact that there were no other big giant bright white areas made me SO
HAPPY. Hoping that Dr. W also
finds no other bright white spots.